All posts for the day July 29th, 2013

I’ve probably said here too many times that I don’t watch regular television—don’t even own a television set. I’ve been known to binge watch shows that my son loads onto my computer. Let’s not get into that either as you already know that too.

There’s this website called “Crackle.” I think it’s owned by Sony or something—another detail I don’t feel like getting into. I found out they have the first four seasons of “Damages” to watch on their site.

Over a year ago, I watched the first season of this show starring Glenn Close and Rose Byrne. In case you’re not familiar with it, the show is a legal drama and psychological thriller and it’s pretty good—or at least the first season was. I decided to do a little more binge watching.

Now when I say binge watching, I’m not saying I stay in front of my computer all day watching teevee. I watch two or maybe three at a time. “Damages” is an hour drama, so at the most I’m wasting three hours of my day, but I do this when my workday is done. Yes, I’m getting a little defensive here.

It had been a while since I watched the first season, so I went back to refresh my memory. In case you want to binge watch too, I won’t go into detail about the plot (same with the rest of the seasons I’ve watched so far) but I’ve always been a Glenn Close fan and she’s excellent and Ted Danson plays a character unlike any other he’s ever played. He’s excellent too.

William Hurt plays a character in season two. Remember him and Glenn Close in the movie, “The Big Chill?” It’s nice to see him and Close back together again, but why is Ted Danson’s character still around in season two? They more or less wrapped up his storyline in the first season. Continuing it on in season two was more of a distraction than anything else.

I just got finished with season three. William Hurt is gone (storyline wrapped up), but Martin Short and Lily Tomlin have arrived—two more of my favorites. The new story is interesting, but why the hell is Ted Danson still showing up from time to time? It’s sort of like his character is “filler” and you have to wait for the good stuff.

Apparently, “Damages” ran for five seasons. “Crackle” stops with the fourth season, and I’ll probably start watching that season sometime this week. As the show moves forward, I think it show runs out of gas a little bit but it’s still good and worth watching. I’ll stick with it.

Binge watching “Damages” and other shows can be fun, but it’s also a relief when it’s over. I still sometimes feel like I’m wasting time doing this. Maybe I’m not sitting down in front of a television set but I’m still sitting down in front of a screen—a computer screen—and it’s basically the same thing.

Message to the folks who run “Crackle”. . . get your ‘pause’ button to work. A lot of the time, it doesn’t.